SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail sales in South Korea advanced 4.4 percent in July from a year earlier as online platforms have enjoyed a spike in demand for groceries and home appliances amid the new coronavirus pandemic, data showed Sunday. The combined sales of 26 major offline and online retailers reached 11.46 trillion [...]
SEJONG, Aug. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s total population inched up last year, but elderly people continued to outnumber children due to a rapid aging trend and a record low birth rate, the national census showed Friday. A total of 51.78 million people lived in South Korea as of Nov. 1, 2019, up 0.3 [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of international students studying in South Korea fell for the first time in six years in 2020, due mainly to the coronavirus outbreak, government data showed Thursday. According to the data released by the Ministry of Education, there were 153,695 foreign students enrolled at domestic universities and [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports of foodstuffs to Thailand rose 14.7 percent in the first half of 2020, data showed Thursday, on the back of rising demand for ready-to-eat products amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Outbound shipments of foodstuffs to the Southeast Asian country reached US$112 million over the January-June period, [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ overseas card spending dropped by the most in more than two decades in the second quarter on a sharp decline in the number of outbound travelers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, central bank data showed Thursday. The amount of money spent overseas by Koreans with cards, including credit [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Deposits at South Korea’s individual retirement pension (IRP) products rose more than 16 percent in the first half of the year to flirt with 30 trillion won, data showed Thursday. The cumulative amount of IRP funds came to 29.5 trillion won (US$24.9 billion) at the end of June, up [...]
SEJONG, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s total fertility rate hit a record low of 0.92 in 2019, government data showed Wednesday, in a clear warning to the nation’s economy over a population decline going forward. The total fertility rate refers to the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime. The [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of imported commercial vehicles in South Korea fell 25 percent last month from a year earlier amid the coronavirus pandemic, an industry association said Wednesday. The number of newly registered imported commercial vehicles fell to 289 units in July from 383 a year earlier, according to the Korea [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Leading South Korean companies’ entertainment expenses sank nearly 13 percent in 2018 on a draconian anti-graft law that came into effect two years earlier, government data showed Wednesday. A total of 7,402 companies spent a combined 3.16 trillion won (US$2.66 billion) in 2018, down 12.7 percent from 2016, according [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Some 17 percent of young students in South Korea are addicted to the internet and smartphones, a government survey suggested Tuesday. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family released the result of its survey of teenagers’ internet and smartphone usage, conducted on 1,331,441 fourth graders of elementary schools and [...]